Starting next week, the bouncers in BART's police force can start 86ing riders who treat the rapid transit system like they own the place. Thanks to a policy passed by the BART board last year, anyone caught defacing a building, taking a dump on the train or harassing passengers and station agents can be banned from the system for up to a year.

Although the law officially took effect last year, the policy took a few months to implement due to some bad PR for BART PD. Now that the policy has gone through the necessary hand-holding to ensure it won't be abused (one hopes) and BART cops have undergone some additional training for dealing with mentally ill folks, the agency can ban anyone who is arrested for a misdemeanor or cited three times in 90 days for unruly behavior. That includes anything from peeing in the corner to beating up fellow passengers to drug possession.

BART already has about 130 people on their own personal no-fly list. Photos of those terrible passengers, along with any additions that come from the new policy, will be passed around to transit cops and station agents. Sadly, there will be no public "BART's Most Wanted" list, instead we will just have to make do with crowdsourced Internet justice.

The new policy comes at a time when, according to BART, passengers are starting to g increasingly confrontational with station agents. During one eight-day period last month, nine station agents were assaulted. During yesterday's press conference on the matter, BART Board president Tom Radulovich explained that the agency these assaults incredibly seriously:

Previously: BART Can Now Ban You If You Beat Up Agents, Pee On Things
[Chron]
[BCN/Appeal]